1978 Pickup, giving her some love...

[Jims5543]

7ent but they are west coast.   I'm trying to think who does engine work on the east coast but my mind escapes me.

Are you trying to think but nothing is happening......




I guess I am OK with out of the area, I will check them out.

[Jims5543]

A couple of  questions for anyone who has built their own engine. Would you do it again? How much did your engine run you?

Do you feel you did a better job than a shop like 7ent?

[MPlayle]

Try Steve Gibbs at CooperTune Racing in Virginia:

Cooper Tune Racing <Jlgibbsrealtor@aol.com>

[94touring]

Yes Steve, that's the name I couldn't remember.  Was just looking at 7ent and see the base 1275 is 6k and no core needed. 

[Richard1]

I built my own, as I did my Corvair and Renault. Parts were $495 from Mini Sport, including dual timing chain kit, bearings, rings, gaskets, water pump, thermostat.

I started with 50 psi compression, but measuring let me stay with standard rings and a slight hone. If it is worn beyond that you need to add oversized pistons.

[MiniDave]

I spent closer to $3000 to rebuild mine, including all the machine work needed - on the head they put in hardened seats, new guides, ground the seats, and surfaced the head - about $800 including stellite faced exhaust valves and the proper guides and seals. On the block they bored/honed it to spec, line bored the crank bearings, machined the crank journals 20 under, decked the block,  boiled it out and so on - with rings, bearings, gaskets, seals for both the engine and transmission, thermostat, new cam and lifters, new rockers etc - I easily hit that number. Then I wound up pulling it back out 2 months later to replace the slipping clutch - it worked fine when the engine only had about half the hp!

I don't think you can do it any cheaper than that for a total rebuild done right.....unless all it took was to be freshened up like Richard's.

[Jims5543]

I am pretty sure if I dug inside this engine, there would be a lot that would need to be replaced. So I am leaning towards buying a fresh rebuild and swapping it in. There is a rather loud and alarming engine knock when you cold start, it lasts a couple of seconds until the oil pressure comes up. Plus my oil changes are telling me that pretty soon there is not going to be much left inside this engine. The amount of shavings is alarming.

I was barely have time to do that, a rebuild myself is pretty much out of the question.

I am probably not going to be able to spend the money on this until later in the summer. I am a since it is out, type and will want to do a lightened flywheel, new clutch and probably some cooling upgrades since I am in Florida.

I can see this creeping up another grand before I am done.


So lets play, what should I do or upgrade.

I am thinking:
Lightened flywheel, and better clutch.
Aluminum radiator, new hoses, water pump and thermostat


Transmission, can I request different gearing? I know I will sacrifice some get up and go if I gear so I can get some more top speed and not be winding the engine out.

[94touring]

You can pick up a nice thick aluminum radiator off ebay (Chinese but I have used several) for just over a hundred bucks.  The cooling system in general is very cheap to replace.   If I remember correctly you'd need to go verto clutch to utilize a lightened flywheel and have better clutch options.  I will look again but I think the 7k 7ent engine had that done and a few other random things like high compression pistons and head work.  There are gear options.  Hard for me to fathom how expensive the engines are in these things.   A used up 1275 lump should net you $750, maybe even as much as a grand these days.  Maybe someone locally can pick up what you have left over. 

[MiniDave]

I can address the gearing choices - I went with the 2:76 gears on mine and love how it runs on the highway, I'm only turning about 3300 at 70 mph! It pulls that nicely with no issues but I think were I to do it again I'd go with the 3-1 ratio instead, the taller gears make it a little odd in town - hard to choose between running in third or fourth depending on the speed limit. It's a little tall in 4th at say 35 mph.

Whether they will allow you to choose your ratio at 7 Ent, you'd have to call and ask them....I believe they have tune options from std all the way up to big hp - more money of course.

Buying a complete engine/transmission is a great way to get it back on the road in a hurry....but a lightened flywheel and tall gears is not a good match - I'd stick with std Verto stuff and flywheel.

[Jims5543]

Thanks for the input so far. I am taking heed of all of it. I need to stop thinking this is a high strung sports car and focus on KISS, keep is simple stupid.

That said, reading some of your posts. I am thinking I keeping it as stock as possible, for simplicity and budget.

So I am not having them do anything custom, keeping the tranny, flywheel and clutch stock (I do want a new clutch though) and I will upgrade the cooling.


Luckily I have a couple of months to beat this into the damn ground before I pull the trigger.

[Jims5543]

I probably should have replaced the clutch slave and added the braided line when I did the master. LOL!!  I broke my own rule to always do that, when one goes the other is not far behind. In this case 1 year behind.

The slave is leaking now. So she goes in the air on Sunday for replacement, at least I have the parts on the shelf now.

[94touring]

Yeah replacing all my hydraulics in one shot.

[Jims5543]

I officially have less than a gallon of gas in the tank (after it running out again and me adding a gallon to get it home) LOL!! So she is parked and I hope to drop the tank tomorrow to change the sender.

Finally.

[94touring]

Good luck.  I just did two senders on sedans and they couldn't have been easier.  Pretty sure you've gotta drop the tank to get to yours. 

[Richard1]

Just be careful not to strip the plastic nuts that hold the tank up. Plastic hardens up over the years.

[MiniDave]

Replacement plastic nuts are not hard to come by, you might even check your local Ace hardware, they may have some that work.....they do get brittle over time.

[Richard1]

The ones available here will not hold the weight, even of the empty tank. I ended up fishing little bolts through the rear rail and out the bottom.

[Jims5543]

Dropped the tank yesterday and replaced the sender, I will drive up today and top off the tank and see what we have, right now it reads empty, because, well it has less than 1 gallon.

I am not too sure what plastic pieces everyone was speaking of. My tank was bolted right into the frame of the truck with metal screws.

I can snap some pics if anyone is curious.

Also the tank comes out much easier if you take the gas cap off.  ;D

[Richard1]

The metal screws on the back end go into the plastic spacers that are about 1 cm tall. I fished bolts through the little holes in the lower panel (a lot of patience required).

If I had thought about it before painting, I would have welded nuts to that panel.

[94touring]

There are suppose to be a series of plastic nuts that snap into square holes along where it mounts.   Perhaps someone else simply used metal screws around the mounting spots.   So long as it's secure and you have a working fuel gauge!

[Jims5543]

The metal screws on the back end go into the plastic spacers that are about 1 cm tall. I fished bolts through the little holes in the lower panel (a lot of patience required).

If I had thought about it before painting, I would have welded nuts to that panel.

Yeah, if I ever do a restoration on this I think that is a great idea.

There are suppose to be a series of plastic nuts that snap into square holes along where it mounts.   Perhaps someone else simply used metal screws around the mounting spots.   So long as it's secure and you have a working fuel gauge!

LOL!! Yeah no plastic nuts anywhere. I did have the spacers behind the lip in the rear but these machine screws went through them and right into the body of the car, in the front they are screwed right into the cross member.

It is nice and secure and considering how hard it was to drop it with all the screws removed, pickup / fuel line needed to be removed and it got hung up on the exhaust as well as the filler neck not coming out with the gas cap on, I suspect it is not going anywhere now with the screws in.

I am not going to have time to run for gas until this afternoon so I will not know until then.

[94touring]

It has been a long time since I dropped a tank but that's what I remember anyways.   

[Richard1]

I think you got lucky and the plastic had not deteriorated and no one had previously put the wrong screws in or something, as the original holes are about 1/4 inch square. The spacers have little lips on them that snap in to the square, and then are held into that position by the screw through the center.

Plastic is nice in that it does not rust, but I doubt that anyone considered how they would be after 40 years or so.

Anyway, glad you got it together.

[Jims5543]

Here ya go, this is obviously one of the rear ones. It is a oversize metal screw going through the tank flange then through a spacer then into sheet metal.

[gasmini]

It looks to me like the hole to the right of the screw going through the metal and the rust hole above it is where the tank should be held up.
At least that's how the tank is held up on my pickup.